Resurrection
by Soursugar88
Summary: When a certain racer regenerates after being incinerated by a cola-beacon, he hears something he wanted to hear for so long now... Though one key detail is different.


**_ Resurrection_**

When Turbo regenerated right outside the mountain, in his King Candy garb, it was no surprise to him. After all, he had the good sense to code himself in the game, or else he'd be dead within a week. It was only when Sugar Rush reset that his disguise was gone for good. He retreated to the side of Diet Cola Mountain that faced away from the tracks, since no one ever went to the mountain at all, and in the rare instance that someone did come, they'd stick to one side.  
Turbo lived like this for months, or at least that's what he thought. He lost track of time, with the 24-hour sun, and no schedule of Random Roster Races and quarter alerts to help him. Except one day, he heard two familiar people come by.  
Wreck-it Ralph and Vanellope Von Schweetz.  
It shouldn't have been anything new to Turbo; the duo occasionally visited the mountain, but something told him to pay attention to them today. The voices were faint, but years of eavesdropping on conversations from the hollow walls of Game Central Station made his ears used to this type of thing. He heard Ralph first, and he seemed shocked, and nervous. About what?  
"Vanellope," he was saying, "you'll never believe what I heard Litwak say today!"  
Turbo couldn't see the wrecker's face, but judging by the fact that Vanellope didn't fire back with her usual snark, he must've looked exactly how Turbo thought he felt. All that was soon forgotten, as he too was shocked at what Ralph said next.  
"Litwak's plugging TurboTime back in!"  
"What?! Why would he do that?"  
"He said something about the older people, like the parents of the kids, playing the game, and he figured it could bring in some more income."  
Silence. The gobsmacked Turbo tried to remember how this was possible, if Litwak got rid of the console. Oh, right. He didn't. It was wheeled out of the arcade, then Litwak went back for it and put it in his storage closet, which was bigger than it seemed, muttering something about nostalgia. He was snapped out of his thoughts by Vanellope chiming up.  
"The same console as before?"  
"Looks like it. Litwak did keep it in his storage closet."  
A pause. Then, Turbo heard Vanellope again, and she was getting more and more agitated.  
"Uh, when is he going to plug it in again?" Turbo noticed two things: that question was posed extremely nervously, and it seemed that the duo was avoiding the name of his game. He again shook his thoughts away to listen to the final word in the conversation.  
"Tonight."  
Turbo stood straight up and stumbled forward, unfortunately crunching the ground underneath his feet.  
"Did you hear something?" Vanellope hissed. Turbo didn't stick around for more. He had somewhere else to be.  
So he ran.  
He was never very good at running, given he was programmed for racing, but he summoned up all the energy he had to outrun Ralph, Vanellope, or whoever else he might encounter. Except Sonic. He was halfway up the bridge to Sugar Rush's exit, and his legs ached, he was out of breath, and his vision was beginning to fade. He still didn't stop, though, unsure if Ralph or Vanellope or both of them were chasing him. He didn't even take the train to Game Central Station, instead running around it and sprinting into the station, and towards the one empty outlet, dodging Zangief, jumping over Dig Dug, and pushing past Sonic. Once he reached the empty outlet, Turbo collapsed on the wall, panting heavily. His legs felt like jelly, and soon decided not to hold his weight up anymore, so Turbo slid his back on the wall and eased himself into a sitting position, closing his eyes.  
After a couple minutes passed and he was breathing normally again, Turbo wondered if Ralph and Vanellope tricked him. It was highly unlikely that his game would be plugged back in after what happened all those years ago, but if it was a trick, he would certainly be in a jail cell by now. Instead, he saw when he cracked a eye open, Ralph was watching him, making sure he didn't run off. Turbo still didn't hear the telltale grinding sound of metal signifying a game being plugged in, so as time went by, sleep overcame the racer.

* * *

Turbo was jolted from sleep by an extremely loud grinding sound, followed by electricity sparking. Since Turbo was leaning on the wall where the plug was sliding into place at that very moment, he had to quickly vault himself away from the wall to avoid being crushed by the plug. Or worse, electrocuted to the point of paralysis... _Then_ getting crushed.  
Turbo held his chest like his heart was going to explode out of his chest, and tried to calm himself down, twisting his body around on the floor to look back at the wall, which now was a gleaming, golden plug. He got up shakily and walked forward, trying to ignore his slightly shaking legs. Before he got out of earshot, Turbo heard Ralph talking to the Surge Protector, about what, he didn't know. He continued on deeper into the plug, and glanced up at the sign, which bore the name of his game. For the first time in a long time, Turbo smiled. Not a fake one, a crazed one, a relieved one, or an evil one, but a genuine smile.  
He was going home.

* * *

TurboTime's train was fast by the standards set back when the arcade first opened, but now it seemed like it was moving at a snail's pace. Even so, Turbo wouldn't trade the old train for the fastest one in the arcade, even though he couldn't stand things that were supposed to be fast but weren't. The train soon reached TurboTime, and Turbo hopped out of it. He ran into his game as fast as his legs could carry him. He couldn't wait to get back to his game, and since he didn't die with the game, it wouldn't regenerate a copy of him. Of course, that meant the game wouldn't regenerate a copy of his kart, but he could easily generate a new one in the code.  
Turbo stopped dead in his tracks when he finally reached his game. The sight of it made Turbo realize just how much he missed it, which was much more than he originally thought. The smile on Turbo's face widened when he saw a certain pair of racers walking towards him. Without a ounce of hesitation, he rushed towards the twins and tackled them in an embrace, not noticing that they stiffened.  
"Turbo?" One of them, which Turbo knew was Throttle due to his voice, asked.  
"What's going on?" Piston asked.  
"I missed you guys so much," was all that Turbo said, but what the twins said next shocked him to his very core.  
"Turbo, how can you miss us when you don't know us?" Throttle asked.  
"Yeah, you're acting really weird," Piston chimed. Turbo slowly pulled away and nervously laughed.  
"Guys, this isn't funny," he said. The twins exchanged glances before directing their attention back to a confused Turbo.  
"It's not supposed to be," Throttle began. "We just got plugged in, we go looking for you, we see you at the exit, we go over to you, you run to us, tackle us, then tell us you missed us, even though you never saw us before."  
The smile on Turbo's face vanished and his hand started to tremble, like it did when he got nervous. He quickly hid his hand behind his back and stared at the twins with wide eyes.  
"You really don't remember me?" He nearly whispered.  
"Well, we were programmed to know who you are, if that's what you mean," Throttle said tentatively.  
"Sorry," Piston said simply.  
"N-no!" Turbo protested. "You can't not know me! We were plugged in before for five years! So many things happened! You can't just _forget_ them! You can't just forget _me_!"  
It took all of Turbo's willpower to hold back his tears as the twins stared at him with those blank stares.  
"I'm sorry," Piston whimpered, obviously distraught over Turbo's behavior.  
"I'm sorry too," Throttle chimed. "But, I don't remember being plugged in before."  
"No, you're _not_ sorry!" Turbo shouted, surprising the twins. "And, if we weren't plugged in before, then how do I know your names?! You're Throttle, and you're Piston!" He yelled, pointing at each respective twin. "A-and you used to have freckles!" He pointed to a surprised Piston. "See, you needed some codework done," he started to explain, "and it was a side effect of your getting new pixels! I know because I'm the one who did it! You can't just forget! **_I'M NOT BUYING IT!"_**  
"Calm down, Turbo!" Throttle yelled, gripping Turbo's shoulder. "It's not our fault we lost our memories!"  
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Piston was repeating his apology as a mantra, his karms wrapped around himself, and tears streaming down his face.  
"Maybe... Maybe I could restore your memories in the code," Turbo muttered, talking to himself now. His head was bowed down as he tried to work things out, but suddenly it shot up, a look of despair and hopelessness written all over it.  
"It'll _never_ work! _Never!_ Your memories are gone forever, and you'll never remember all the stuff we did!" Turbo's voice started to crack at the end, he sank to the floor, and curled up into a ball. Piston sat down next to him and wrapped his arms around the racer. Turbo shakily returned the hug as he finally broke down into Piston's shoulder. Throttle knelt down in front of the two crying messes who were his brothers and rubbed each of their shoulders, making little hushing noises. Turbo was trying to say something, but he couldn't compose himself for one second to make out any words.  
"T-Turbo, pl-please calm d-down," Piston tried to console Turbo over his own tears, which were thankfully dying down. Turbo, meanwhile, unconsciously threw one of his arms around Throttle, and his face turned beet red. A few months ago, he was a king! Now, he was back in his own game, but he was in the arms of his brothers, who, by the way, had no memories of him, sobbing his heart out.  
"Turbo," Throttle began, "we just got plugged in, of course we wouldn't have any memories-"  
"I told you, we were plugged in for five years before," Turbo composed himself long enough to cut Throttle off.  
"Turbo, I don't remember anything, but I believe you," Piston said in an attempt to calm Turbo down.  
"You do?" Turbo whispered, pulling away from Piston and inching away from the twins, covering his face with his hand.  
"I believe you too," Throttle agreed, reaching over to Turbo, gently pulling his hand away from his face and wiping Turbo's tear-stained cheeks with his sleeve.  
"What exactly did we do?" Piston asked expectantly.  
"Tons of things," Turbo answered, then looked away.  
The trio sat in silence for a few minutes, until Throttle spoke up.  
"Turbo, listen," he started. "Piston and I might've lost our memories, but we're still the same people. And judging by your reaction to our memory loss, we must've been very close, and I don't see why that should change. You shouldn't waste your life trying to get our memories back, or missing 'the old us'. But, if you want, you could tell us what happened the last time we were plugged in."  
Both twins looked expectantly at Turbo, awaiting a reaction. It took a few seconds, but the twins' eyes widened when they saw Turbo smile at them.  
"I'd like that."  
** ~THE END~**


End file.
